The Electric: A Battery CEO on Robots—'They Need a Lot of Power'

Kang Sun is out to bust up a battery industry consensus. For years, battery startups have assumed that to succeed they needed to penetrate at least one of three big industries: electric vehicles, stationary storage or portable electronics.

But Sun, CEO of silicon anode developer Amprius Technologies, notes that the pursuit of those industries hasn’t gone very well: A couple of startups have sold their batteries to a fitness device company or two, along with some Chinese-made smartphone makers. But no startup’s batteries are powering any commercial EV; carmakers, instead of adopting new chemistries, have stayed with “good enough” conventional batteries that cost less. And the market for stationary storage batteries is dominated by cheap, low-end batteries largely made in China.